Arms Full of Flowers
by siqwithaQ
Summary: Luffy grieves in his own way, and pulls Marco with him.


_A/N: Slightly canon divergent in that Luffy was with the WBs for the burial._

* * *

Luffy had disappeared to somewhere on the island almost as soon as the remaining Whitebeard Pirates had docked. Marco really couldn't blame him; he wished he could escape, himself, but he had graves to dig.

The crew was on the ship, holding a far-from-small service for their late captain and commander when Luffy returned, arms full of flowers.

The rest of the crew hadn't been able to bear knowing their lost family's bodies were in the room with them, while Marco hadn't been able to stand hearing the eulogies and tears of his siblings. The makeshift coffins were sitting out by their intended graves as Marco watched them and waited for his brothers and sisters to be done. He was the only one there when Luffy approached.

"Hey," Luffy might as well have whispered, for how hoarse he sounded. One pale flower fell from the multicoloured bunch, the wind carrying it to land by Marco's feet.

He picked it up, turning it all ways as he looked it over. "Hibiscus?" He was not nearly as hoarse as Luffy, but only because he was waiting until after the burial, when he would be alone in his quarters, to let himself cry.

Luffy choked on a nod. "Mm." He breathed, twice, three times, and swallowed. His eyes were glassy as he explained, "One time when we, me and A-Ace were kids, Gramps brought these flowers, h-he said… said Ace's mom always wore them in her hair, and he put it in Ace's hair and it made Ace happy." Those glassy eyes fell to the coffins. "Which one is…?"

Marco put his hand gently on the lid of the one closest to him. "This is… his. Ace's."

Luffy went over to it, stumbling slightly. He fell to his knees at its side and dropped the flowers long enough to pry open the lid. Marco only wished he could look away.

Luffy's eyes immediately glued to the form inside, a strangled whimper emerging from his throat. He reached for the hibiscus flowers without ever looking away.

When Luffy gathered the flowers in his arms, Marco wondered, vaguely, what he intended to do with all of them. He surely couldn't fit that many in Ace's hair.

But Luffy didn't go for Ace's hair. He took the flowers, and stuffed them all in the gaping chest wound that had put Ace there, put them all there, in that coffin and around it and on the ship and on that island and by those accursed graves with those accursed tombstones and all the swords in the ground behind them.

Luffy looked at the finished product and his expression fell even more. "It's not enough," he said.

Marco swallowed his hesitation long enough to lean over and see that the hibiscus half-filled the damned hole that Marco would curse for the rest of his life, the petals laying against the sides and sticking up in places and resting against the remnants of Ace's lungs, and Marco felt sick.

"Not enough," Luffy repeated quietly. He had visibly deflated.

"Not enough for _what, _yoi?" Marco asked on a whisper, horror-stricken. Why on Earth had Luffy done that?

Luffy looked up at him from behind his bangs, and Marco suddenly realised Luffy hadn't really looked him in the eyes until now. Not back at Marineford, not as they had been talking, not even in the entirety of the trip from the battleground to the burial island. But now Luffy was meeting his eyes and Marco wished he weren't; Luffy's eyes, a dark brown so close to Ace's dark grey, held the exact same fire Marco knew so well and missed so much. And looking at that fire in someone else _burned_.

"To… to…" Luffy started, but then he seemed to change his mind and rephrased. "If we can't see the… If we can't see _it_, it'd be almost like he was whole again, right?"

Marco gaped for a second, but then his eyes left the _awful itching burning ceaseless_ fire in those of Luffy's and travelled to Ace's body again. And he imagined what Luffy was suggesting.

To have these flowers — Ace's mother's flowers, flowers that made Ace happy, Luffy said — spilling out of– spilling _over_ Ace's bare chest and keeping him company until the end of time. It was a nice image, a good image — a better one than having Ace rot in the ground alone with nothing to hide that _horrible_ _terrible revolting sickening_ wound in his chest.

"These aren't enough," Luffy repeated again. His frown carved deeply on his face and sat wrongly as if he was unaccustomed to such an expression. "I'm going to get more."

Marco looked over his shoulder, at the ship, then down at the coffins, at Ace, at the hole in Ace that the hibiscus didn't quite fill yet, and he decided they would fill it soon.

Luffy walked away, back to the forest, without looking anywhere but forwards. Marco went after, trying to follow his example, but he couldn't resist one last look over his shoulder as the two graves grew smaller in the distance and the stars were beginning to come out.

When they returned, the moon was high in the sky, and their arms were full of flowers.


End file.
